Welcome to the second in our series of HR recruitment market insights. July resulted in a very positive month on the whole for HR recruitment. We saw a sharp increase in job numbers and there was real sense of more positive energy in the recruitment market.
In our first update I did warn of a potential flattening of that activity in August. Direct adverts for HR & Payroll roles do not yet infer that this is happening. Currently we are seeing signs of this from an agency perspective and we do expect that to be the norm throughout August. Of course we would love to be proved wrong! Let’s hope those of you who have booked holidays abroad can manage to still get away and benefit from that much needed break. The ominous increase in Covid numbers across Europe doesn’t bode well so let’s hope the increased response rates from countries will curtail its impact.
As many businesses look to how and when they might return to some degree of office based working the Oakleaf team are excited at the prospect of embarking on this stage of return in September. We will be moving from our current address in Holborn after 7 years. We moved to Norfolk House in 2013. As we gained real momentum building out of the financial crisis we needed a new larger office to sustain our plans achieving over 20% YoY growth over the last 5 years. As we face the next major hurdle in our growth we find ourselves moving again. We pride ourselves on being a business that embraces flexible working as best we can and with Covid this need has only been heightened more. We will be moving to Waterloo and partnering with The Office Group to provide our team with a flexible office solution that supports the needs of our team as well that of our customer.
This week the insight will review both the financial services and professional services sectors. Lauren Hewlett was promoted to lead our FS practice in April and gives her thoughts and Sarah Alexander moved back into the Professional Services practice to take over from Gareth Evans and drive the next phase of Oakleaf’s development in this sector. Jenny Scrivener joined Oakleaf in February to lead our Executive Interim offering and she explains how the Executive team are partnering with senior leaders to bring a virtual Oakleaf Academy to market this year.
Financial Services Insight
The FS market is certainly moving in a more positive direction and week on week we are seeing a rise in new mandates which have been weighted equally across permanent and fixed term contract roles. Whilst still dramatically quieter than pre Covid times, there have been a small number of new interim roles live across the market, hopefully a sign that interim solutions are still being considered despite budget restrictions.
We have had some very encouraging conversations with businesses who are sitting in comfortable and positive territory, performing well amidst the impact of the last few months. The overwhelming message across the board is that decisions are being made very carefully and concisely, assessing risk and moving cautiously over the coming months. We suspect we can likely form a more accurate view of how the Financial Services market will be affected long term once the government’s furlough scheme concludes in October. A lot of conversations coming through from Senior Business Partners and Heads of HR are around getting people back into the offices and this seems to be one of the biggest priorities across our network. No businesses are forcing this to happen currently but they are advising their workforces on return to work contingency plans, with the popular choice being to allow people back in differing waves and categories of urgency.
Another positive sign that the Financial Services market remains more buoyant than others is that the bigger banks are hiring. Mostly if not all are looking to manage this processes directly at the moment. The majority of the clients we have partnered with over the last 3 months have been SME businesses who do not have their own strong internal talent acquisition functions. Asset and Investment Management sectors have been notably busier.
Interestingly, 4-6 weeks ago all of the mandates we were working on were generalist focused HR Business Partner or HR Support/Project positions whereas this has now swung towards HR specialist roles in the Talent, ER and Recruitment space. It is our understanding that we can expect more of this as business attempts to bounce back towards the new normal. We also expect to see more wellbeing and engagement type roles – there are already more of these roles coming to market from organisations directly. We have seen a big surge in Diversity and Inclusion roles in the market and this has been confirmed by the experts in our D&I community.
Across Financial Services HR, it is still very much a client driven market and clients are remaining quite particular in their requirements and expectations of candidate profiles. We are also still largely competing against in-house teams.
A really fantastic outcome of the dramatic change in how our clients recruit is the feedback given by our candidates with how positive their experiences have been with virtual and online interviewing, onboarding and inductions. My team and I have embraced and feel very positive about virtual interviewing. It’s been a great way to maintain and strengthen our relationships during a testing period.
Professional Services Insight
Unsurprisingly, the last few months have been as tumultuous in professional services as any other sector. Across our main markets (legal, accountancy, consultancy and property) the overall sharp decline in new roles was partnered with a steep increase in the number of roles, and indeed offers, put on hold as a result of fairly kneejerk recruitment freezes applied just as lockdown kicked in. 26 roles, in total, which represents roughly 50% of what the team works on at any given time, disappeared from our jobs lists in a matter of weeks.
The businesses which were able to swiftly and efficiently transfer their workforce to home working were the ones that initially, were able to maintain a ‘business as usual’ approach – notably top tier management consultancies, whose global footprints and existing agile cultures made adaption swift. Naturally even with this advantage, cost reviews and new, more rigorous approval pathways for hiring meant that by April, opportunities for HR professionals in the sector were very limited.
Whilst things have certainly been tricky for all concerned since, some more positive observations are:
- The need for professional services HR talent has not abated! That we have since re-ignited several and placed 3 of these 26 is testament to that.
- Core HR remains in demand. Understandably, generalists and business partners who have been tasked with the Covid19 response are flat out and they will remain busy through return to work planning, restructure and OD, plus a focus on wellbeing and culture. Furlough and job cuts are more prevalent in talent acquisition and L&D. However lessons learnt from previous downturns show that specialists needn’t be despondent, longer term this will change.
- Interim opportunities still exist, primarily as FTCs to cover maternity. Successfully covering these roles is critical, especially as above, for core HRM / HRBPs and we anticipate more of these in the coming weeks.
- Candidate experience is in sharp focus. This is an area that Oakleaf strives to always focus on, and as mentioned in the last newsletter, we are doing our very best to manage the current spike in application volumes.
- Networking is key. There are many fantastic examples of colleagues, connections, LinkedIn ‘friends’ making time for each other, sharing opportunities and offering pro bono help, and ending up successful in their job searches. This is something that Oakleaf are part of and celebrate, not disadvantaged by, as might be perceived!
- Offices are re-opening, but flexible working will remain the norm for a long time to come. Many firms are seizing the opportunity to ingrain better agility and flexibility into their culture long term.
- Diversity is key – we’ve seen a spike in the number of D&I and CSR roles in the last few months and this shows no signs of stopping.
- Our professional services team is currently running the largest number of mandates since March. We anticipate an August holiday slow down – processes are taking a long time to complete – but overall, we remain cautiously optimistic for the months to come
Jenny Scrivener introduces Oakleaf Talent Talks Series:
Over previous years and since 2015 we have run The Oakleaf Academy. It was set up to support rising HR talent progress as they set out on their career. The idea was to bring together talented HR professionals with senior HR leaders in a social setting, allowing them to impart their wisdom and career advice. It’s a unique and invaluable opportunity for our candidates to ask questions and expand their personal network of like-minded, ambitious HR professionals and share knowledge, learning and best practice across industry. Our aim is to nurture and support talent in the HR community, and each session had a key development theme led by a senior HR professional who talked through their career journey and how they overcame obstacles.
Due to the current climate and the global pandemic, supporting our rising HR talent is more important than ever. At Oakleaf Executive we have partnered with key executive HR friends to put together a series of online videos – our “Talent Talks” series to ensure we continue the OP academy and give something back to the profession. We want to help equip our talented HR professionals with useful tools that will support them, from finding the right role, to becoming commercial HR practitioners fit for the new world.
We will be sending these interview links out with this newsletter and also posting these on our Oakleaf Talent Talks linked group.
Please follow this and get involved – https://www.linkedin.com/groups/3686688/
We really hope these help you in some way and very happy to explore any specific topics if we can.
So watch this space…
Our next insight will focus on the reward and payroll sectors.
Simon Hunt
Managing Director
Tel: 0207 220 7030 | Mob: 07739 804159
